I am now going to attempt to communicate with you about communication. I have absolutely no qualifications but I do have some beer, so let’s see how this goes.

Language! What is it? Your first reaction might be that it is the way in which people communicate with one another. Like, I want to tell you something. I want some thought of mine to enter into your thoughts. The way I can do that is by saying it. But, also I can write it and have you read it. Like I’m doing right now. Look at me putting my dumb little thoughts into your brain. Every word you read makes me do it more.

I can say it or write it and the message more or less makes it to you (more on that in a bit). But it is strange that there is any correlation between the spoken and written words at all. There is no intrinsic reason a relationship between the two exists. People were making mouth sounds and agreeing upon a common meaning of those sounds long before we made written language. I mean shit, even animals can vocalize to each other to convey different messages. Prairie dogs make unique sounds to warn of different types of predators that they spot. They chirp a pattern to let the rest of the colony know they saw a hawk, or they squeak and then chirp to indicate a coyote.

And you don’t have to be a prairie dog expert like me to observe this. Household pets vocalize to communicate all the time. A cat hisses to show it is pissed off, and it will do a cute little trill to ask for some belly rubs. A dog’s bark sounds very different depending on if it is asking for you to throw the ball or to warn you if somebody’s at the front door. We Humans can understand these vocalizations instinctively.

So there are these seemingly biological vocal indicators to convey meaning. Humans are no different. We gasp when something startles or scares us. We yell and get loud when trying to intimidate. Same shit. But because humans have big brains, we took vocalization and coupled it to our social interdependence and developed it further. We turned it into a technology. By agreeing on the meanings of different vocalizations, and having the capacity to recall them and the frontal lobe gift of abstracting for the future, we could do something other animals couldn’t do. We could inform others of experience beyond instinct. We could take our problem-solving, prediction engine mind and bounce it off our fellow caveman. To see what they think. Sounds became more nuanced and specific in their meaning. Mouth noises settled into a schema; a framework for understanding of the world.

Schema! (I apparently just like this word a lot lately because I used it in my last post but anyway who gives a fuck) Schema is your model of the world. It’s the framework for which life comports itself to you. Here’s my best example of what “schema” means:

When I was 11 years old, my family went for a walk. The neighbor’s dog was on a tie-out in the yard. He was a big black lab. My three year old brother saw this and said “Look, a bear!”. In his schema, a large black animal that looked like that was a bear. He did not know dogs might be like that. We told him it was the neighbor’s dog. His schema grew to include dogs into that type of creature. Language depends on a common baseline. We assign labels like “bear” or “dog” in accordance with our schema.

A black lab and a black bear are both quadruped mammals with a similar headshape and snout. But the English language distinguishes them because it is useful to do so. This is pretty easy to understand. But what if our language just had one generic word for a creature that fit those criteria? What if we did just call all black labs “bears”? Would we treat them the same way? Would we believe these pooches to be more dangerous than they are?

The fact that we have different words for different animals is pretty simple and obvious. It makes sense that we have a shared schema that overlaps almost completely in regard to things like that. But what about when we apply language to less tangible, well-defined things? If I talk about an abstract concept like “fairness” or “love”, how can I know if your schema and mine are similar enough for effective communication? Or, what if my language simply doesn’t have a term for what I’m trying to express? If I can’t define it in direct and simple terms, does it really exist?

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis! A tapir named Sapir and Lieutenant-Commander Worf from Star Trek once proposed a theory of language and/or philosophy. The gist of it being that whatever your native language, it heavily influences or even defines what types of thoughts you are capable of having. You probably imagine yourself thinking in words and sentences. At least, when you’re paying attention to your thoughts. Can the machinery of your language accurately convey everything happening in your mind? Are you limited to expressions and terms you know the meanings of?

“Preposterous!” you say, brandy and spittle leaking out of the corners of your mouth. Adjusting your distended cummerbund as you shift in your high-backed leather chair, you assert ” My brain does all my thinking, and there is no limitation. Language is merely the tool I use to express my thoughts. It has no dampening effect on the types of thoughts I can manage.” You harumph yourself back into the chair, and fart what you had hoped would be a silent one, but it’s actually quite loud, rumbling against the leather.

But consider this: Not every language uses the same color words. Native English speakers have quite a suite of names for colors at our disposal. Beyond the typical ROYGBIV, we have cerulean and periwinkle and a whole host of minor distinctions. The types of colors that only appear on paint swatches, so your wife can get annoyed that you don’t care if the baby’s room is painted “sunshine yellow” or “vanilla yellow”. But linguists and anthropologists have noted that most cultures develop names for colors in a predictable pattern, and we do not all continue making as many distinctions. Some cultures, largely the almost-uncontacted and indigenous tribes, assign only “black” or “white” to color. It’s dark or it’s light. This seems to be the first distinction we make. The third color, if it shows up, is red. Some peoples have two colors, and some have three. But if they have three, it’s probably black and white and red all over. Many languages do not make a distinction between green and blue. They are simply different shades of the same color. Think about that the next time you’re laying on your back under a tree, watching the leaves bounce in the breeze and you can see the sky beyond them. Same color, basically.

Some aboriginal Australians do not have words for “left” or “right”. They use cardinal directions instead. The Guugu Yimithirr language has no subjective “left” or “right”, but they will say something equivalent to the more universal “Hey, can you grab me that pen on your South?” or “Hey, you’ve got a booger hanging out on the West side of your nose.” Obviously this manner of speech requires you to have an internal compass at all times. We English-speakers certainly do not have this feature in our language. This seems to me to be evidence of language shaping thought in a subconscious, basic way.

The 2016 movie Arrival takes this Sapir-Whorf football and runs with it. The main character, Amy Adams, learns the language of an alien race. These aliens are fourth-dimensional beings, who do not experience time as a succession of moments, but simultaneously know everything that happens in their lives. By learning their speech, she becomes a fourth-dimensional being and her own lifetime becomes one great continuum that she can freely move back and forth in. It’s a cool movie. This is kind of stressing the potential of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but it’s fun to think about. Language as a program that unlocks a new dimension of understanding. Woah, dude.

Language is the software that your brain hardware runs. It is the script that defines your sentience. As the great punk rock icon Noam Chomsky once put it, “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Um, okay. I’ll have whatever he’s smoking.

The Shift Change, Metropolis (1927)

One of the early masterworks of the silver screen, Metropolis examines the industrial revolution’s effects on humanity. In this scene, workers march in rigid lockstep. They exit a monstrous factory, the scale of which makes them seem small and insignificant. They are almost indistinguishable from one another, due to the drab uniforms they wear and the fires of industry casting dark shadows over their faces. Metropolis directly references the ancient pagan god Moloch, a deity that demands human sacrifice to be sated. In this new age of mechanical progress, does technology serve man, or does man serve technology? This question resonates with audiences to this day.

The Ruination of Charles Foster Kane, Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane is a masterwork of the silver screen, crafted by auteur director and lead actor Orson Welles. The film is a character study, following the life of the titular Charles Foster Kane. Kane begins as a brilliant, charismatic, and principled young man. Tragically, his own pride and ambition grow year by year, eventually displacing all that was once good in him. This climactic scene sees Kane old and alone, having just cast out the woman who was his last connection to humanity. He wanders small and aimless inside his immense and ostentatious mansion, a potent symbol of his own humanity being lost in his outsized desire to be a Great Man of History. The film calls to mind the Biblical proverb “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” This question resonates with audiences to this day.

The Terror of Getting Exactly What You Want, The Graduate (1967)

Legendary actor Dustin Hoffman was the breakout star of The Graduate, a masterwork of the silver screen. The film expertly tells a timeless story. Young Benjamin Braddock, fresh from school, must now forge a life for himself. But Benjamin is disinterested plotting a course for the future. He spends his time day drinking and having morally dubious dalliances with an older woman. He is at the same time both listless and self-destructive. Is he overwhelmed at the enormity of choosing his own path? Cynical about society’s expectations? Some mixture of both, or neither? In The Graduate’s final act, Benjamin realizes that he loves Elaine, the daughter of the older paramour he’d been seeing. He interrupts Elaine’s in-progress wedding to another man, and they run away together in a fit of romantic rebellion. The film closes on a shot of their excited faces slowly fading to a kind of stunned sobriety. “Now what?” their expressions seem to ask as the credits begin to roll. Indeed, each time we fall in love, or reach a goal, or pass some milestone in life, joy always seems to subside and the uncertainty of the future settles into the space where that joy used to be. How does one find happiness, and can you ever make it last? These questions resonate with audiences to this day.

Killing an Evil Space Wizard with Laser Swords, The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

The supposed final chapter in the modern American mythos that is Star Wars is a masterwork of the silver screen. This energetic film tells the classic tale of an evil space wizard who died decades prior coming inexplicably back to life, and how his secret granddaughter must collect various baubles and trinkets that will guide her to his location so she can kill him. This scene of their final confrontation seems to pay tribute to history’s greatest storytellers, as we witness an old man screeching with laughter as he shoots lightning out of his fingertips at a woman who is holding two glowing swords. She seems to intuit that she needs to cross the swords into an “X” shape, and this maneuver is, of course, the key to defeating the ultimate evil of the universe once and for all. The Rise of Skywalker left audiences in a state of awe. The film raised many, many, many, many questions. These questions resonate with audiences to this day.

Humans are unique among all forms of life on planet Earth; we are the only creatures to be born with a human heart. Many other species have tried. Chimpanzees and pigs can only manage a close proxy. Some blue whales succeed, but only briefly. They die almost immediately because a human heart is way too small for one of those big dudes. Most blue whales born with a human heart live only long enough to think “Aw sweet, a human heart. I’m gonna swim around here and….oof…I’m a little dizzy…..uh-oh,” and then they die.

We have understood the heart to be important since time immemorial. Many ancient cultures believed the heart to be the seat of a person’s intellect or will. This is interesting. In modern times, with our modern-ass scientific gizmos, we know that thoughts and emotions are chiefly the domain of the brain. We understand that cognitive experience happens in the head. In fact, when I am deep in thought, I will say I’m “in my own head”. Or when I am facing a stressful situation, I develop a headache. I wonder how much of that sensation is innate, and how much of it is because of my cultural schema. Somebody told me it happens in my brain, so that’s how I experience it. But what if I had been raised to believe that my “self” came from my heart? If I had been born three-thousand years ago, would my chest feel like it was buzzing while working out a problem? Would I get chest pains from a shitty day at work?

That way of conceptualizing one’s true “self” through the heart still dominates culture today, even though we don’t really think it’s totally-for-real-true. It’s more a metaphor. As evidence, I will point you toward literally any facet of culture. If you love someone, you give them your heart. If they reject you, your heart is broken. If someone is kind and generous, they have a big heart. If someone is evil, they are heartless. If someone is a sniveling, petty, needlessly-combative shrew made of shit, they are my landlord.

And just look through song or movie or book titles to get an idea of how much significance we give the heart. “Hearts in Atlantis”, “Heart of Glass”, “Heart Cooks Brain”, “Heart of Darkness”, “Heartless”, “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Heart of Stone”, “My Heart Will Go On”, etc. etc. etc. The band Heart.

It has become a cultural symbol of intention. To send someone a ❤️ is shorthand for love, support, compassion. It represents the seat of emotion rather than the seat of the intellect now.

I mean after all, the heart’s real function is utilitarian. It pumps blood around your body. Keeps the oxygen moving to where it is needed and keeps the carbon dioxide moving out of you. Moves nutrients and hormones and all kinds of juices around. It’s completely different than the real mastermind, the ol’ brain.

Or is it?

Scientists have discovered that a cluster of neurons hang out near the top of the heart. Using badass Alienware microscopy, we found out that a tiny brain is helping to regulate the activity of our principal subject here. Nervous system cells are scattered all over your body, but these ones sitting atop the heart are basically identical to the ones inside of your skull. Your ticker gets it’s own little thinker called an “intrinsic cardiac nervous system”. Heart gets brain, brain regulates heart, man brings back dinosaurs.

For a long time, if your heart was damaged in battle, you were dead. If a fellow caveman drove a particularly sharp rock into your hairy chest, it was game over. Same for if a rapier found home in your cardiac rhythm machine, or if a musketball burrowed into your aorta while you were standing next to Napoleon. The heart was too quintessential and mysterious to be subject to human attempts to repair it. As the physical phylactery for your soul, it was beyond our capabilities. We could amputate your leg or stint your arm. If shrapnel found it’s way into your heart, well, goodbye.

Until World War One. The Great War, as it was called then, because it was so fun and awesome. In WW1, some guys were like “Nah man, fuck that shit. I can totally do surgery on the heart.” George Grey Turner was a British doctor. He received a patient who had been shot right in the heart with a machine gun round. He used a brand-new technology called an X-Ray to look at the patient’s chest, and he could see a bullet inside of the patient’s heart, moving with every beat. Figuring “Well, if we go by the book, he’s already dead,” Turner cut him open and reached in and grabbed the dude’s heart. He palpated around, hoping to extract the bullet. He never did, but he dislodged it enough to heal his patient’s hit points, and the man survived. I like this story because World War One is such a fuckup. There was no legitimate motivation for either side, but we had all this new technology that we just had to try out for the purposes of killing people. Planes! Tanks! Chemical Weapons! All kinds of ways for the industrial revolution to kill people! But there was also some dude who was like “Hey maybe some cool cutting-edge tech could be used for Life.” And it was to salvage a man’s heart. Other doctors had done work on the heart before. Not in the same way but also progressing the thought. Daniel Hale Williams was a noteworthy one. We slowly learned that it wasn’t sacrosanct and beyond reproach. We could heal it.

Werner Forssmann was a German, as if you couldn’t tell by the name, who did heart surgery on himself. Again, there was a superstition that too much intrusion into the heart itself would be fatal. So he decided to test his own hypothesis about putting a catheter up in there. He duped a nurse into assisting him to cut open his own chest and to insert a needle to better take an x-ray of his heart. The man touched his own heart with his fingers. Aware and under only local anesthesia. He was reckless and stupid, but it proved that such a thing was possible. He later became a Nazi, but um…I mean. Nobody is saying he was smart in that way. I certainly am not. Ugh, okay.

What is the dang heart? We may never know for sure. Metronome of the soul? Perhaps. Thick knot of muscle, squeezing carbohydrates around my body? Perhaps. A delicious nugget of muscle in an otherwise offal bucket of livers and gizzards? The world may never know.